Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A former Vancouver insurance agent has been charged with theft and forgery for allegedly collecting about $15,000 in commissions by creating fictitious applicants for insurance policies.

Julie Anne Goss, 43, an independent agent for AFLAC, was arraigned last week in Clark County Superior Court.

The scam came to light after the owner of a restaurant in Battle Ground, Wash. told AFLAC that she’d received premium bills for two “employees” that had never worked there.

AFLAC investigated, and it turned out that Goss wrote dozens of policies for 15 people that either weren’t employees at the named businesses or apparently didn’t exist. In other cases, she wrote policies for real employees, but they said they hadn't applied for the coverage.

In each case, Goss stood to get a commission for the policy. All told, the investigator found, between August 2010 and January 2011, Goss wrote 91 fraudulent insurance policies and collected more than $15,000 in commissions for them.

The company canceled its contract with Goss in March 2011 and reported the matter to our Special Investigations Unit. After investigating further, we revoked Goss’ insurance license in January 2012. The charges against her were filed in late June.If you suspect insurance fraud and you live in Washington state, please report it.